1.1.8-Columbina
Brick!Club 1.1.8: Philosophy After Drinking Today I did turn to the tag first because I didn’t have much of my own to say, and was hoping someone else would have given a run down on the writers mentioned so I didn’t have to look things up myself because I do have actual study for uni that I should be doing. Anyway, I’m really enjoying watching everyone in the tag get progressively more fed up with the Bishop. I mean, I always feel a bit conflicted with these sorts of things. I mean, I totally wanted to high five Hugo for his little “The senator…had made his own way, heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty” because oh snap gurl, but at the same time taking down shallow materialist atheist strawmen isn’t actually any better than shallow materialist atheists taking down their superstitious hypocritical Christian strawmen, you know? Again, the tag seems to be kind of divided between religious sorts who are like “Yeah, yeah, we’ve all met That Guy” and non-religious sorts taking issue with his shallowness being linked to his atheism. And for sure, I have definitely met my own senators, and I have been like “That’s awesome, I’m so happy for you that you managed to sort everything out so easily, well done.” It’s a bit frustrating because Hugo, you could have done something much more interesting here, if you’d had an actually intelligent / likable adversary for the Bishop. I remember having a really great discussion with a friend once who was comforted by the idea that this was all there is, so you better damn well get all you can out of it, because she thought it was so freeing, to be answerable to no one but yourself, to have no one responsible for your own happiness or sadness but yourself. Which is essentially the same argument the senator is making, only framed less selfishly. Because it is an argument that is entirely reasonable! The flipside to her philosophy, of course, was an intense dislike for ideas about God’s will or fate or destiny or even karma. She wanted to believe that her life was entirely in her hands. I am the complete opposite, maybe just because I worry so much about making mistakes. I hate the idea that we’re all alone, that there’s no purpose to our lives but what we decide. I want God to be there, to have my back when I mess up, to help me to not mess up in the first place. It’s more common for atheists to go around denouncing religious beliefs as comforting fairytales and what have you (“Fables of nurses; bugaboo for children; Jehovah for men”) but her beliefs were just as much about comfort - I’m scared of being alone, she’s scared of Judgement Day and not being in control of her life. THERE ARE INTERESTING DISCUSSIONS TO BE HAD ON THESE TOPICS, HUGO. You can have them if you don’t reduce your atheist to “lol he thinks he’s smart but he’s just parroting misunderstood scraps of ideas as he tries to justify his selfishness”! Commentary Alasse-irena Many of these things yes! (There is probably a third camp around here - religious people who still take an issue with atheism and shallow selfishness being linked.) doeskin-pantaloons complained somewhere that Myriel should’ve had reasoned discussion with the senator, rather than squashing him with a snappy shut down, This is exactly why he can’t - because the senator isn’t a real person: he’s a strawman atheist. …Originally I went on a wandering tangent here about atheism and religion in general, but I decided it wasn’t necessarily relevant, so I left it out. Basically, you have articulated very well why this chapter is more frustrating and less interesting than it had the potential to be. Columbina (reply to Alasse-irena) If I left out tangents that weren’t relevant I would have nearly nothing to say! Please include them!